Long Term Evolution (LTE) is a Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standard for mobile network technology. The LTE describes requirements for mobile communications systems in evolved or advanced cellular broadband technologies. Such requirements include Evolved Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN) which is a high-speed radio access technique to meet increased network demands, including improving user throughputs and network capacity, reducing latency, and increasing mobility.
The LTE includes protocols, such as a Radio Resource Control (RRC) protocol, which is responsible for the assignment, configuration, and release of radio resources between a user device (e.g., a mobile telephone, a smartphone, etc.) and a base station or other access or LTE equipment. According to the RRC protocol, the two basic RRC modes for the user device (also referred to as a user equipment) are a “connected mode” and an “idle mode.” During the connected mode or state, the user device may exchange signals with a network and may perform other related operations. During the idle mode or state, the user device may shut down at least some of its connected mode operations.
In mobile communications, applications can generally be classified as data channel intensive traffic or access/control channel intensive traffic. Data channel intensive traffic includes video streaming, video-telephony, and transferring of large files. In contrast, access/control channel intensive traffic (also referred to as “thin traffic”) does not require large data channel usage. Examples of access/control channel intensive traffic include instant messaging (IM), online chat, and real-time online discussion forums. For such thin traffic connections, the most likely radio frequency (RF) bottlenecks, depending on configuration, are the setup or release of a RRC connection for each time messages need to be exchanged between user devices, or control channel overhead associated with maintaining RRC connections.